Friday, February 25, 2011

Just like poor Mikey, those Italian forces are pulling me back in. In this case, they're Tuscan, not Sicilian, but just when I thought I had carved out some jazz-free time this year I got -- you guessed it -- a pretty hard offer to refuse. (Enough already with the bad Italian/Godfather references... I'm racking up an anti-Scots Canadian deficit here.)

I'm honored to have been invited to participate in this year's Siena Jazz Workshop, and really looking forward to 10 days under the Tuscan sun, particularly since it will be in the company of some of my favorite musicians, including Dave Douglas and Eric Harland.

My challenge now is to develop a suitable topic to use as the basis of the lecture I have to give at the workshop. At this early stage, I'm toying with the idea of revisiting a thesis I used to discuss with my late friend, jazz writer Eric Nisenson. It revolved around a jazz variation of pianist Glenn Gould's "idea of north," using examples of Paul Bley, Sonny Greenwich and others.

I may use this space as a canvas on which to sketch these thoughts. Feel free to chime in if anything grabs your attention.

About The Author

James Hale is an award-winning music journalist who writes for DownBeat and has made presentations about jazz at music festivals and conferences in North America and Europe. He is a co-author of the Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues.